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Wednesday, 5 August 2015

THE POLITICS OF CRIME IN AMERICA

This
article
is part of a 13-question interview about American society that Jaime
Ortega, president of "The Daily Journalist"
conducted with me by submitting questions in writing. The essays with the first seven questions
appear below and the rest will follow in the coming days.

8. Jaime Ortega: For
the past few years, Liberal mainstream media seems to have
aggressively started an ethic campaign to show white on black racism
(mostly police enforcement) but gone silent to shown opposite
racial bait. But things are not looking good because many social media have
started to show increasing black on white and/or Asian crime which has
infuriated a lot of people. Is this fomenting great racial tension in the
US? Who's fault is it?

JVK: Crime in America as an academic topic would require volumes to explain
because it has to do as much with the political economy, social structure, race
and ethnic relations, and culture of violence imbedded in gun ownership that
conservatives and the gun lobby support. Crime is the violation of social norms
legalized by government that legislates on the basis of established social
interests. The broader concept of justice is associated with protection under a
legal system that guarantees due process in a modern pluralistic society. Where
the US falls into this category as an open society, it is a country with capital
punishment that many advanced countries have abolished, and a country with very
high crime and prison rates that impact primarily minority communities.

While the US is a leader in political correctness when it comes to dealing
with government and business, the same standard does not hold true when it
comes to the domain of crime. The media, politicians, and analysts liberally
use class, ethnocentric and racist assumptions to stigmatize not just people
committing crimes but entire social groups. The same stereotypes and stigmas
are not used when wealthy white people commit crimes regardless of their
nature. Therefore, the criminal justice system is a reflection of society at
large and it reveals a great deal of the level of social justice.

The origins of the modern criminal justice system rooted in a rational,
some would argue scientific mode is 18th century Europe.

With
Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria’s On
Crimes and Punishments (1764), Christian-based assumptions about criminal
behavior and the criminal justice system began to change largely because of the
advent of economic expansion and the First Industrial Revolution in England.
Industrialization created large urban centers with working class and poor
populations unable to sustain themselves and yielding to petty crimes as a way
of survival. This is something that social scientist Henry Mayhew described in London Labour and London Poor in the
1840s amid controversies about the manner that the state dealt with the poor
that became criminals.

Before the Enlightenment of which Beccaria was a part, crime was a sin and
a reflection that the criminal was on the side of the devil instead of God. The
good-evil Christian dichotomy was the basis on which crime was judged,
including crimes of witches, Jews, gypsies, and even animals in many cases. Demonizing
crime meant harsh punishment for sinners and unbelievers that defied the
Christian Church and political establishment. Discounting for the mentally
unstable, Beccaria argued that society, not the devil, creates criminals who
defy the social contract because it marginalizes them. In other words,
Becacaria appliedthe views of philosopher
John Locke that human beings are products of their environment to the domain of
crime and punishment. The conclusion was the denial of innate criminal traits
and affirmation that society shapes human behavior.

The goal of the criminal justice system is to impose
modes of conduct by legislators crafting laws and benefiting from the dominant
social class against those that have no stake in the social contract because it
is rooted in social injustice. The dominant social class has always used the
legal system to maintain and preserve its privileged role against the majority
outside the realm of privilege. Whether in the era of Beccaria or today, the
lower social classes are associated with crime because the institutional
structure marginalizes them and they have no stake in something that precludes
them from participating in a social contract equitably. This is the case with
minority groups and the poor today as much in the US as any other country
around the world.Nevertheless, the
media chooses to represent crime on the basis of innate character flaws not
only of individuals but of social class, race and ethnicity. This is closer to
the pre-Enlightenment dogmatic good-evil dichotomy than to the Beccaria model
of crime and punishment. The manner that the media and politicians present
crime has political goals because the issue is then used to keep society
distracted from the injustices of the social contract designed to maintain a
privileged order, namely the top tiered socioeconomic groups that the law and
political system protects.

Media “race baiting” is as old as the Civil Right movement on the part of
racists who insist they are merely speaking the truth in order to inform. To
distract the focus of the public from the underlying causes of poverty and
institutional racism that causes crimes in minority communities, the media
looks superficially at the symptoms of criminal activities of individuals to
discredit the entire minority population. When a white male guns down black
people in a South Carolina church, it is the act of a lone gunman, a mentally
unstable person who does not represent the majority population despite the
nature of the hate crime. Although the crime was committed for blatant racist
reasons that a segment of whites share political correctness and legal/societal
conformity prevents them from expressing their views directly. Instead of
analyzing this issue, the race-baiting rightwing media refuses to address the
larger institutional problem that gives rise to such crimes.

When black youths are gunned down in cold blood by white cops, the media
and analysts immediately rush to defend the murderers instead of the victim.
This is done in the name of law and order implying that blacks are presumed
guilty with tendencies toward violence, defiance of police authority and civil
disobedience. Moreover, the race-baiting media focuses on black-on-black crime,
on black-on-Hispanic and black-on-Asian crime. For example, the San Francisco
media focuses on black-on-Asian crime, but rarely covers white collar crime or
does so with the same criteria as blue-collar crime, especially when it
pertains to minority-on-minority crime. This is also reflected in the
black-white conviction disparity that is 10 to 1, although the black population
in the city accounts for only 6% of the total.

Race-baiting has also targeted Obama who is black has not done anything
about crime in minority communities, while the core issue of cultural and
institutional racism with long and deep historical roots is never raised. Race
baiting serves the political agenda of the institutional structure in
deflecting focus from the racist culture and class struggle of which blacks are
an integral part and suffering discrimination at all levels. This is a way of
placing race issues at the center so that class issues are subordinated and
people do not question the political economy and social structure. Dividing people
in this manner is exactly what the European racist colonial masters did in
Africa and it continues today in America at more subtle levels.

Crime becomes complex because arrests of blacks and Hispanics is at much
higher level as the police have a presumption of guilt for minority groups that
is not applicable to whites and especially to people based on higher social
status. For specific areas of offences such as minor drug use for example, the
statistics for black and white users about equal, but arrests and imprisonment
of whites is tiny in comparison to blacks. Many critics, including European
governments, have argued that imprisoning minorities in the US is a political
decision. Nevertheless, the media projects the image the minority male is the
criminal and the white majority the victim in a society where crime has become
a ubiquitous phenomenon in every sector from books, newspapers, magazines, TV
and motion pictures. In fact, local and national news programs routinely cover
petty crime whereas they never cover the absence of social justice driving
people to criminal conduct. This is in part because the US is hardly a
democratic society but a quasi-authoritarian one ruled by the powerful
influence of the wealthy, as Jimmy Carter recently pointed out.

At the very core of the enormous resources that the US and media spend on
the crime issue is the goal of perpetuating the quasi-police state that
converges with the war on terror. At the same time, it is a distraction from
the underlying causes of crime that are socioeconomic, political, and cultural.
The media promotes racism not only by what it chooses to cover selectively when
it comes to crime, but the manner it presents white collar crime impacting the
entire society vs. petty neighborhood crime impacting individuals and
households as victims. The images of a cop arresting a black or Latino youth stealing,
dealing drugs, running from the police is very dramatic and part of the culture
of fear the media tries to inculcate into the public that crime is associated
with minorities.

The media always differentiates between the white collar criminal
defrauding investors and the government of hundreds of billions of dollar, and
the petty thief stealing $100 from a 7-Eleven or breaking into a home to steal
jewelry and cash. The white collar criminal banker involved in schemes to
launder billions of dollars in drug money is excused as an isolated “bad apple”
in the otherwise perfect system to which there is no alternative. The white
collar criminal whose impact on the economy is immense may do a few years in a
minimum security prison in a worst case scenario, and then come out to write a
book about it and go on the lecture tour after becoming a consultant.

People shrug their shoulders when there are reports of money laundering,
insider trading, monopolistic practices, manipulation of interest rates, etc.
but they go ballistic when a Hispanic or black unemployed youth is caught
breaking into a house stealing jewelry. This is not at all to trivialize any
kind of crime or to excuse it. However, the media instills shock value and fear
in the public mind about crime by minority youth. Meanwhile, the corrupt and
illegal practices of the white corporate CEO are covered as part of “business
news”. The minority or poor white youth stealing a hundred dollars from the
7-Eleven will do jail time, and if it is a second offense and a gun was used a
long prison term awaits. This individual will become hardened inside the prison
and then unable to find a place in mainstream society after his release.

The media, government and the justice system send a signal to society that
crime pays very well when it is within the institutional framework involving
Wall Street, banks and corporations defrauding consumers, investors and the
government. According to the FBI, while blue-collar crime costs run about $15
billion annually, white-collar crime costs run at $300-600 billion. The figures
are much higher according to the National Criminal
Justice Reference Service. “ Costs (white-collar crime) are
estimated for employee theft, cargo theft, health care fraud, consumer and
personal fraud, insurance fraud, corporate tax fraud, computer-related and
other high-tech crime, check fraud, counterfeiting, telecommunications fraud,
credit and debit card fraud, corporate financial crime, money laundering,
savings and loan fraud, coupon and rebate fraud, and arson for profit. Annual
losses from the preceding white-collar crimes are estimated at $426 billion to
$1.7 trillion.” (https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=167026)

Business crime is just an integral part of business and the media never
stigmatizes the white majority as thief and mega-criminals damaging society in
very significant ways that impact living standards. There has always been a
correlation between social class and crime, just as there has been a
correlation between race/ethnicity. The political system, the criminal justice
system and the media reflect as much in their treatment of different crimes.
For example, hate crimes in America, according to the FBI, are committed
largely by whites. However, there is no stigma attached to the entire white
majority for hate crimes rooted in race/ethnic/religious/gender prejudice. The
reason is that the media attributes hate crimes to isolated cases whereas it
refuses to do the same with minority petty crime or gun-violence crime
involving narcotics.

Whereas the media covers black-on-white crime to prove that whites are the
victims of an entire minority population suspect of criminal tendencies,
white-on-black racist crime is covered as isolated incidents of disturbed
individuals. In other words, the criminal mind of the white person has
malfunctioned, while the criminal mind of the black person is a reflection of
the entire black community at odds with the white majority and refusal to
conform to white majority institutional law and order structure. In the absence
of a structural change in the political system, there will never be a change in
the criminal; justice system and media attitudes will continue to reflect the
views of the political and socioeconomic elites whose crimes are the absence of
social justice that gives rise to criminal conduct.

9. More than
ever before crime has risen to worrisome levels. Gangs overflow many city
districts with lack of good public education, and it’s an emerging threat to
the nation’s future. The liberals blame the conservatives for the
problems at bay, but who is more responsible in your opinion?

Crime is historically an issue around which conservative try to rally
public support because they are interested in promoting a fear of culture that
maintains social and political conformity. The real enemy of society is the
petty criminal, the drug user, the gang member killing other gang members, but
never the political economy and social structure that have created the
conditions for these people to operate against the status quo. Not to minimize
the “functionalist” theory of crime that sees the issue from the prism of lack
of moral regulation (Durkheim), or the “control theory” that places all
emphasis on control mechanisms to deter crime, but I stress conflict theory
because it takes into account structural causes and conflict between social
groups and power elites endeavoring to preserve their privileges. In addition, the case of crimes in America has the
racial dimension that may not be as significant in a more homogeneous society.

Racial profiling is a reality of the American justice system all the way
from the cop on the beat targeting minorities to the judges passing down prison
terms. The so-called “war on drugs” was racially-based and motivated by the
Reagan administration’s zeal to punish the poor. The result of this hysteria
was the rise of non-violent offenders from a mere 50,000 when Reagan was
elected to more than 400,000 by the end of the Clinton presidency. Not
surprisingly, the people incarcerated were predominantly minorities, while drug
use among middle class white America increased.

The war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure in curbing drug use and
drug-related crime because the US is a mere 4% of the world’s population but
consumes about a quarter of the world’s drugs, and this is not the poor and
minorities but the middle class whites. Therefore, the farce of the war on
drugs has not made a dent in capturing the white wholesale drug suppliers, the
white bankers laundering money, and the white officials accepting bribes to
allow the multi-billion dollar drug trade to thrive.

Related to drug violence which has its roots in profits that benefit
mainstream institutions we have gang violence that apparently impacts all US
cities with a population of quarter of a million or higher and about 10% of
rural areas for an estimated 25,000 gangs and three-quarter of a million youths
involved in such activities. Because about half of gang members are Hispanic
and one-third black, the media projects this as indicative of the breakdown in
the morality of minority communities.

Looking the issue of crime from a conservative sociopolitical perspective,
it becomes one of family values and the problem of the individual and family,
and it has absolutely nothing to do with society as though individuals and
families live in isolation of the institutional mainstream that shapes their
lives. In other words, the fact that the mom and dad lost their jobs, or they
are locked in low-paying jobs, kids go to inner city schools that are
chronically underfunded are not variable in crime.

The absence of investment in
roads, parks recreational facilities in poor neighborhoods, all these are
unrelated to gang violence as far as the apologists of the class-race justice
system are concerned; the only thing that matters is that they are black or
Hispanic with innate propensities toward violence.

Although gang violence costs society an estimated $100 billion annually,
local, state and federal Government place all resources on punishment instead
of addressing the fundamental causes of poverty that lead people to crime. This
in part ideologically and politically motivated based on a conservative mindset
that prevails in America about crime, and one associated with the Reagan
administration. For social conservatives and a segment of the broader
population criminal conduct is a flaw if not a sin of the individual rather
than a structural byproduct of socioeconomic inequality and absence of social
justice. This is a reflection of Christian fundamentalist influence in politics
about the issue of crime.

The victims of crime are mostly the poor and minorities rather than white
middle class, although the mass media and politicians present the image that
such violence has the white middle class as its targeted victim. The American
class-based criminal justice system is based on allowing multi-billion dollar
corporations and the wealthy to go free when they commit crimes that cost
society at large, while focusing on the neighborhood Hispanic gang member who
shot a rival gang member after a drug deal went bad. Meanwhile the authorities
are not tracking financial transactions through banks by wholesale drug
traffickers, but instead focus on preventing the gang member from distributing
in the ghetto where they live and die.

The Liberal-Conservative debate on better education to
lessen gang violence is itself a distraction because both liberals and
conservatives serve the same socioeconomic and political system and differ only
on cultural issues and values pertaining to questions on gender, race, and
ethnicity. Can the educational system fix a problem that is much wider in
society? For example, no matter how great the school that a child attends, if
conditions for his family and neighborhood are wretched because the parents’
socioeconomic status is very low, the ideas inculcated into the young mind of the
student can only go so far before the reality of misery at home and the
neighborhood kick in. Conservatives ever since the French Revolution believed
that ideas shape the human mind to the exclusion of material conditions. History
has proved them wrong, because people act out of necessity stemming from material
conditions not ideas imbued with moral messages.

10. Recidivism in an “open society” A lot of these criminals after a few felonies windup
in prison where they end up becoming worst when reinstated back to society.
Does liberal democracy spawn the adequate environment for more criminals to
thrive? And will it get worse?

There is something seriously wrong with the criminal justice system and
society when three out of four prisoners in 30 states are arrested within five
years of release. This suggests a problem with the integration of the ex-prisoner
in society for a number of reasons. Prisoners regard the state penitentiary a
university where they actually learn how to become better criminals from other inmates
instead of reforming as is the presumed goal of the state penitentiary. Why are
x-cons arrested so quickly and why so many in comparison with other countries
around the world? Statistics indicate that about 40% arrested from drug
violations, 38% for property offenses and the rest for violent crimes.

Excluded from many employment opportunities with any kind of good pay and
prospects, ex-cons do not qualify for public housing, education loans, food
stamps and even voting rights. This leaves crime the only avenue left open to
survive, other than begging in the streets or taken in by a charitable relative
or organization that is favorably inclined. All of this is well known to
politicians, the media and academics criticizing the prisoner for failing to
integrate, while excusing the system that preclude integration.

Conservatives blame liberal
democracy for the levels of high crime in America compared with other
industrialized countries that have a much lower crime rate and low prison
population. The conservative argument is there is not sufficient punishment, that
government is too lenient toward immigrants prone to crime, that minorities use
civil rights laws to circumvent the law. Conservative politicians, the media,
and various analysts from think tanks and academia are constantly reinforcing
fears among the public about crime as ubiquitous in society to the degree that
people fear of opening their door because a criminal will be waiting to steal
from them. In fact, crime is confined largely to poor and minority neighborhoods
that do not have electronic protection systems, police protection to the degree
a wealthy middle class neighborhood does, and private security as well as
neighborhood watch groups.

Conservatives and the media blame “liberal democracy” that is in fact
non-existent considering that a quasi-police state is now in full swing in the
US. In the post 9/11 political culture and legal environment, police state
methods are justified in the name of law and order and in the name of national
security. The convergence of local law and order and national security actually
has its origins in the Cold War, but it has assumed entirely new dimension with
Muslims as a target group in the 21st century replacing Communists that had the
same honor in the 20th century. The ideology is the same, namely to
crush dissent. People of color and Muslims are “natural” suspects not just by
the police who profile them, but society that has its prejudices reinforced by
the media, politicians and many academics.

How does the US differ from other advanced nations and how is similar to
Third World authoritarian countries in the criminal justice domain? The US has
more crime than industrialized countries, according to the OECD, and its
criminal justice system is about as punitive as in many authoritarian
countries. Comparing the US with Saudi Arabia, which has a very different
culture and it is an authoritarian society, the US ranks very poorly in crime
statistics except in the area of punishment that is about as strict. But what
if we are to compare the US with Switzerland that is more democratic and
certainly less militaristic than the US? As far as weapons ownership in private hands, in 2007
US just under 5% of the world's population is estimated to own between 35 and
50% of the world's guns. Switzerland ranks higher than the US as far as gun
ownership.

Switzerland has a population of around 6 million and
it seems that one-third is gun owners. If Switzerland has more weapons per
capita than the US, how do we explain that it has a very low crime rate not
according to US standards, but any standard in the world? Both countries are
capitalist and have a bourgeois institutional structure. The only rational
explanation for their differences is the deeply-rooted culture of violence in
American history, militaristic foreign policy, the glorification of violence in
a popular culture of atomism, the treatment of criminals and different criminal
justice system, and the low priority for social justice that gives rise to
crime.

Canada is right next door to the US with similar
economy and social structure. However, whereas the US has a prison population
rate of 700 per 100,000, Canada’s is 106, Germany 96 and India at 29. Are
Canada, India, and Germany less democratic and less open societies than the US
that has more than four times higher than the world average prison population?
The policy emphasis in the US is on punishing harshly and not rehabilitation of
ex-cons so they could reintegrate in society. These factors make it easier for
high rates of recidivism. Whereas in Canada and UK burglary is punished about
five to seven months, in the US it is three times higher. Although an estimated
1,600 are released daily (600,000 annually), they come out in the same systemic
conditions – lack of jobs, affordable housing and social services - that
brought to prison initially.

Crime in America and the criminal justice system will
become much worse for a number of political, economic and social reasons.
First, the political climate in America has been shifting toward the right ever
since the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions of 1979. The Cold War was quickly
replaced with the war on terror that created a convergence between national
security and domestic security, justifying the quasi-police state methods
applied.

To justify militarism and exorbitant defense spending
in time of peace, the government – Democrats or Republicans – will use fear mongering
and demonizing foreign enemies to keep the population at home in political
conformity. As the economy expands but does not result in upward socioeconomic mobility
because GDP growth will not be sufficiently high to absorb public debt costs
while capital concentration will continue, the weakening of the middle class will
continue. The issue of crime will remain at the core of media coverage because
it will continue to serve its purpose of mass distraction. The poor and
minorities will remain the core of criminal activities. Feeling increasingly
marginalized by a system that caters to fewer and fewer people amid the
contradictions of an economy that overproduces, the poor whites and poor
minorities will remain the focus of the police for petty neighborhood crimes to
gun-violence offenses. The prison system will become even more rigid and
politicians will continue to demand even harsher sentencing and longer prison
terms.

11. Looking at history the most successful methods
to contain crime or even eliminate it reside in countries that harbor
dictatorships and theocracies. In the end of the day, if things get worst would
the US have to pan-out democracy and adopt a far more engaging strategy to
contain crime as seen in other countries past or present? Would that ever
happen?

Containing crime in America is an issue on which conservative
politicians and media have been focused, but their efforts have not worked as crime
and prison statistics indicate. On the contrary, the US remains number one in
the world in prison population and one of the highest in crime. Unless there is
a total overhaul of the criminal justice system and the culture among law
enforcement changes, we can expect worse things to come with everyone paying
higher taxes to fund security and prisons instead of schools and jobs programs.
Crime prevention is difficult because
the same failed methods of placing all emphasis on punishment as the sole focus
of the state have remained in place due to ideological and political reasons.

The underlying assumptions of what makes a criminal
are important in this endeavor. If we adopt the religious assumptions of the
Middle Ages that people are inherently evil and must be punished because they
cannot be reformed merely because society marginalized them and they are
reacting with defiance, then we would have the result we see in US today,
focused on the poor and minorities. This reflects a political/ideological
decision because the criminal justice system is an extension of state policy
intended to protect private property. The policies of the US and their
practices in the field of criminal justice indicate that the political and
economic elites want a police state society and do not want to lessen this
problem, no matter the rhetoric from liberals or conservatives.

If the focus goes from the police-state punitive
methods to greater social justice, then the public will realize the culture of
fear that the state and media have been promoting is a distraction from the
inequities that exist. Policing America domestically is more in line with and
an extension of US foreign policy of policing the world. If the policy focus
changes to reform society, it would mean undertaking systemic changes in the
social structure, economy and political system. The criminal justice system is
an appendage of the larger society that is based on racial/ethnic, gender and
social inequality. It is simply impossible to bring about greater social
justice and “democratize” the criminal justice system in the absence of
addressing broader societal changes.

Of course, the other way the US could contain crime is
to introduce even harsher sentences, as I am convinced it will do in the future.
This means longer prison sentences, more death penalties, more police-state
methods, and more police killings of minority youth in the streets in the name
of law and order. Ironically, the more rigid the police enforcement mechanisms becomes,
the more popular resistance it encounters in an open society that demands
conformity to the law and civil rights.

One may ask how more rigid can the US become in the criminal
justice system, considering that it ranking among nations stressing punishment
rather than rehabilitation is already very high?

How many city mayors,
governors, congressmen and presidents have run campaigns on the law and order
issue? It just does not pay to question a politician who is “tough on crime”, any
more than it pays to question unilateral militarist solutions to international
conflicts because the journalist, academic or consultant knows rewards come
only to conformists.How can a political
candidate possibly lose running on law and order, considering that opposing
such a position on the surface appears to be supporting crime and chaos and
advocating disruption of society? Regardless of racist police-state methods,
the mass media has done its part to prepare the public ideologically to accept
even harsher criminal justice system that is a never-ending cycle targeting the
poor and minorities because the business community is interested in protecting
its property and investment, and has no interest in social justice.

If the US is looking for models from other countries
with low crime rates, it could look to a number of them including Denmark or
Japan. However, this means that the cultures of Denmark and Japan must somehow
be transported to the US along with all of their institutions because crime
does not take place in isolation of the rest of society but within its broader societal
context. In other words, the idea of using isolated technical aspects, or
technology such as police officers equipped with cameras to prevent them from
abusing their authority, will do absolutely nothing to change conditions as
they exist currently. Clearly, there is a multi-billion dollar industry in
America profiting from the fear the public has about crime, so these
corporations have no problem with the status quo. Everything from home detection
and spy cameras to insurance plans and private security officers account for a
very profitable industry that could be cut down to size if the country did not
have a social, economic and political system based on social injustice.

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."